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Posted on 02/11/2003 11:09:58 PM PST by kattracks
The Clinton era seems long gone now, but when the memories come back, they're not generally pleasant. For conservatives, the bad memories surface when CNN has the gall to bring Clinton on "Larry King Live" on Ronald Reagan's birthday. There he was, to publicize his stage appearance with the Rolling Stones to raise funds to fight that global-warming monster. In his typically petty way, this most unpresidential former president slammed George W. Bush for not spending enough on homeland security while giving tax cuts to the rich.
Liberals still regret having to drop all the fairy tales about the admirable Clinton marriage and the president's supposedly reformed sexual behavior. A few weeks ago, ABC's "Good Morning America" revisited the five-year anniversary of the Monica Lewinsky story, and reporter Claire Shipman couldn't help shuddering at the "acid flashbacks" to that awful moment for Democrats when a Clinton scandal moved the Nielsen ratings meters.
But for a few journalists, the memories of the Clinton impeachment are becoming sharper than they used to be. Longtime CBS Capitol Hill correspondent and "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer has a new memoir out called "This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV." It seems that what he couldn't tell you on TV was what everyone already knew: Clinton was a sleazeball.
Schieffer confesses that early on he had a "prejudice" in favor of Clinton, since he corrected the notion that not all wisdom somehow originates in the northeast United States. He adds, "I come from a long line of conservative Texas Democrats, but I claim no political party." He says Clinton established some "remarkable feats," from NAFTA to welfare reform to balancing the budget -- feats that seem less remarkable when you acknowledge they were GOP initiatives, not his.
But Schieffer grows agitated remembering Sept. 11, 1998 -- the day he spent part of his afternoon reading snippets of the Starr Report in live coverage. He remembers "as the father of two grown daughters, I found the whole thing depressing."
On that day, he had the ability to express that personal feeling, but he never did. Reporters express their personal feelings about everything else, but not this.
Schieffer suggests, "Clinton disgraced the highest office in the land, and as the tawdry details of his affairs became a part of the national conversation, he coarsened the culture of the people he had been elected to lead. That was his crime."
Schieffer never talked about a coarsened culture on TV, either. What conservatives had so forcefully maintained, and which Schieffer now concedes was true, was roundly ignored when it was news.
In his book, Schieffer also trashes Clinton for making his secretary Betty Currie come in on her days off to clear Monica into the White House, then wait through the sexual escapades before she could go home. He attacks Clinton for sending Madeleine Albright and Donna Shalala out to lie on his behalf. He says Clinton "had shown himself to be a user of women who was not hesitant to take advantage of his friends when he found it necessary for business or pleasure. Schieffer actually did say a version of this on television -- on his "Face the Nation" commentary two days after reading the Starr Report on the air. But he never chided Currie, Albright and Shalala -- no babes in the woods -- for knowing full well they were hiding the truth and lying to the American people.
Perhaps the most telling anecdote in his Clinton chapter comes near the end, where he tells the story of Lanny Breuer. In August 1999, six months after Clinton's acquittal, Schieffer received an engraved card from Covington and Burling announcing that Breuer was returning to his old law firm. But the announcement struck him by boasting that Breuer represented the White House "in presidential impeachment hearings and trial, four independent counsel investigations, a Justice Department task force investigation, and numerous congressional oversight investigations." While Schieffer thought Breuer "was a good lawyer I had dealt with and come to like and respect over that time ... that engraved card carried an arresting and somewhat unsettling message: If you need a good criminal lawyer, get someone with White House experience."
Schieffer never said that on TV, either. There's no question but that the pro-Clinton media circled the wagons around this man in 1998. Maybe Schieffer's memoir is far too little, far too late. But it's better than the obedient silence from those who continue to deny the shameful performance from this shameless disgrace of a president.
Brent Bozell is President of Media Research Center, a TownHall.com member group.
©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Come now, Bob, you old sot.
We all know that Clinton was a draft-dodging, coke-snorting, sexual-harassing, perjurious, treasonous rapist. THOSE were his crimes.
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Lest Americans ever forget why the clintons, and all their enablers need to be hectored, hounded, and harried into silence, until "clintonese is only spoken in Hell," look here:
Warning!
| Liars-- and Sleaze, Incorporated... ( my files on the clintons and friends ) |
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That's why I've renamed the hole in the ground (where the WTC used to be) The Clinton Legacy.
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For all of you who've seen the Reebok commercial "Terry Tate - Office Linebacker"
Here is my dream clip ...
-PJ
Hillary Clinton at John Jay
IN YOUR DREAMS HIL: Hillary Asserts State of Union Is Not Secure (bigtime barf alert) The New York Observer ^ | 2/3/2003 edition | Josh Benson
Posted on 01/29/2003 4:11 AM PST by Liz
In a recent speech at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Senator Hillary Clinton said that the Bush administration was failing to make the nation safe, linking the President’s efforts to cut taxes with what she described as a neglect of homeland security. Speaking to reporters on Jan. 28, shortly before the State of the Union address, she reiterated the theme: "Our priorities must be national security, homeland security and economic security, and on those three measures the proposals that the President has made … are not going to work," she said. "It worries me that we’re not setting our priorities to deal with the most important issues facing the country now. -----“
Nancy Pelosi
Is Iraq a distraction? TownHall.com ^ | 1/28/03 | Mona Charen Posted on 01/27/2003 9:32 PM PST by kattracks House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asked on television whether she supported military action against Iraq, kept returning to the same two answers. We must consult with the United Nations, and we must not let this distract us from the war on terror.----"
Mandela
Clinton Behind Mandela's Bush Bashing?
NewsMax.com ^ | 01 Feb. 2003 | Staff Writer
Posted on 01/31/2003 10:07 PM PST by txradioguy
Questions are swirling about the role ex-President Clinton may have played in encouraging one-time international human rights icon Nelson Mandela's acid attack on President Bush Thursday, where the former South African president accused his friend's successor of having an impaired intellect and being a racist.-----“
John Edwards
Sen. John Edwards accuses the Bush administration of doing too little to protect the country News & Observer ^ | December 18, 2002 | JOHN WAGNER
Posted on 12/18/2002 7:11 AM PST by jern
Edwards targets domestic security
By JOHN WAGNER, Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. John Edwards today will pointedly accuse the Bush administration of doing too little to protect the country against future terrorist attacks and outline a series of initiatives that he says would reduce the risk. "It is time for all of us, without regard to party, to say what every American knows: Washington is not doing enough to make America safe," Edwards says in a draft of a speech he is scheduled to deliver at a Washington think tank. "If the administration continues to do too little, it will be too late again. We must do better." The North Carolina Democrat's proposals include billions in new spending to better equip police departments across the country, to step up border patrols, to increase security at nuclear and chemical plants and to develop a new warning system for the public. He will repeat his call, first voiced in October, to create a new domestic intelligence agency. -----“
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